The present invention relates to floor covering with a wooden floor on a substrate, e.g. of concrete or screed or planing mass. The invention also relates to a method for covering such substrate with a floor covering and the use of a studded plate for such floors.
In one aspect, the present invention, as mentioned above, relates to a special type of an insulating plate/studded plate with adhesive absorbent qualities, alternatively sound absorbent or energy reflecting/energy transforming qualities, where layers of an absorbent material, such as felt or a felt-like woven or non-woven material are applied on each side of a basic layer of an impenetrable or leakproof plate material of a synthetic material such as a plastic material, hvere the synthetic material comprises a number of bulges, such as bulges in the shape of studs, where a layer of an adhesive absorbent material is applied to each side of the basic layer in such a way that the layer of adhesive absorbent material is tightly connected to the outermost surface area of bulges or studs, alternatively to the outermost surface area of the plate material between the bulges or studs on the opposite side in relation to the bulges or studs.
It is known to use studded plates as support plates where they can be used as ordinary support plates, draining plates, disconnecting plates or plaster plates or as a support for adhesive means for tiles, e.g floors covered with ceramis tiles. Examples of this can be found in US Patent Application 2006/0201092 and European Patent Application EP 1 700 970 A2.
A number of buildings of today are made of concrete or a concrete based material, especially in constructions verging soil, where the contrete mass and the hardened concrete lies in direct contact with surrounding earth, stone, clay or rock material and where these conditions causes the concrete to harden slowly and/or time consuming. If the surrounding mass is contains large amounts of moisture, e.g. after heavy rain or flooding, the concrete will be feeded with further moisture. Therefore, the concrete can excrete moisture over a long time span.
The use of a plastic sheet and polystyrene or mineral wool based insulating material gives some, but not sufficient protection against moisture from the ground, but the floor materials are sensitive towards moisture in the concrete. Due to this moisture, it is not advantageous to arrange a floor material, such as parquet or other wooden flooring directly on such concrete. It is therefore necessary to use a membrane material between the concrete and the flooring to avoid e.g. rotting, moisture penetration, obliquity or dislocation of the framing strips or parquet blocks, a general weakening of the floor material etc. To this end, it is in many cases used studded plate that provide a gap in the form of channels between the concrete and the floor covering. The bulges or studs in such studded plates can be shaped in many ways, such as four-sided, rounded, polygonal etc and can be with or without overhang or projections.
All concrete floors being put directly on the soil, contans humidity. Accordingly, floor coverings such as wooden floors cannot be put directly on the concrete. Cement/concrete/reinforced concrete being used in floors above soil will also contain humidity, compricing e.g. floors made of a slightly expanding clay aggregate concrete and light weight concrete, plaster based floors/walls/ceiling, concrete modules applied with floating floors, floating floors of laminated products or parquet, floors applied with plaster/clay based screed coat ets. The moisture in concrete elements and/or other concrete is often invisible and hard to detect and without a membrane and ventilating possibilities between the concrete and the floor covering, there will, over time, be a risk of attacks from rot, humidity damages etc. Without an efficient impermeable membrane being sufficiently efficient, moisture from the concrete can attack the wooden materials from below. The same problem can also be seen on tiled floors where the filled seams will allow passage of moisture. The result is damaged floors with swelling, fungus and rot. In addition, there can arise bad smell, harmful fungus spores and a poor indoor environment.
In general, all floor constructions being based on concrete/cementhas the quality that the use water for hardening. The moisture in, the concrete is often invisible and hard to detect. To obtain a good moiture/sound and temperature insulation, also in floor provided with heat sources, it is advantageous to use a number of isolation layers between a laminate floor, parquet floor or floor of a synthetic material. In new buildings, it takes time to desiccate or dry moisture out of the concrete floor construction. The waiting time for drying such concrete floors can range up to a year and often will surveillance of the moisture represent increased costs such as when wooden floors are arranged in a traditional manner.
Studded plates are used to prevent problems relating to moisture in floors. To solve such problems as indicated above, a “passive” ventilating is being used. The studded plates often contains hollow studes with round or rounded, four-sided or with other cross sections of the perimeter or circumference of the studs, with a diameter of from 5 to 55 mm and a height from 1 to 10 mm, or even 20 mm. The studs are often distributed in a quadrangular pattern or an altering pattern to give a sufficient apportionmant of the load as well as the ventilation. The studs can advantageously be dispersed over the plate with the tops or peaks of the studs facing downwards towards the base flooring or sleeper to form an air gap on the underside of the plate between the studs. An opposite placement can also be used and it is possible to form plates where the studs are facing towards both sides of the plate.
The plates can be joined by a sealing tape of the upper side of the plates to obtain a sealed floor space. In the case of severe problems with humidity, smell and other emissions, the air gap between the studded plates and base layer can be ventilated mechanically to provide an air stream over the concrete surface or substrate and form a negative pressure in relation to the space or room above the plates. A ventilated air gap can also contribute to the drying of the concrete.
It is furthermore known to use studded plates as a membrane between a concrete substrate and tiles lied on such substrate. The concrete substrate is covered with studded plates. The studded plates can thereafter be covered with a binding adhesive on which the tiles are arranged.
However, wooden floors are also used instead of tiles in everyday rooms etc. Some wooden floors are lied “floating” without binding to the substrate. Other floors have to be anchored. It is therefore a need to find a method for covering a subrate where the humidity from the concrete base is not affecting the wooden floor being attached to the substrate.
Different types of primer of adhesive are normally used to attach wooden floors to concrete substrates. However, it is found that this can result in problems, especially relating to the remaining moisture in the concrete, as explained above.